28-day somatic for feeling snatched by November

(machine whirring) So my ladies that wanna feel snatched by November 1st, if you can't get out of survival mode by yourself, you have to try the 28-day somatic. And we're all doing this with every meal, it'll just launch your metabolism. It doesn't even have to be a meal. I recommend before every meal on a daily basis to just wash your, wash your hands. Um, and one other thing you can do is, you know how the veggie squirt was so important? You don't have to drink the vinegar. You can also make it into a dressing and put it on your veggies. Okay. So, so you're making it easy for yourself. Yeah. So even a salad with some vinaigrette dressing, a wonderful way to spray them. It's wonderful. You get the fiber from the veggies making that mesh and you get the vinegar slowing down breakdown of tooth. And you're golden. Okay. Yeah. Okay, now I can get back on it. Yeah. Because I've been avoiding it. (laughs) It was so hard. I was like, I have to ask you about this today. I'm not surprised. I am not surprised. I was doing a shark vinegar and, and you were right about the teeth as well. Like, the idea of- I'm so sorry. That's terrible. Yeah. That's kind of gross. Yeah, well it's- Yeah, I don't blame you. ... it's really hard to have and yeah, every time I have it, it almost tastes like this stark fruit flush and have like a, you know... That's not great. Yeah. Huh? Sorry. No, no, no, that's good. But as you can see, this is another really easy hack, right? So it's free, it doesn't ask you to add any ed- to remove anything. You're just adding stuff and hoping it creates the same kind of effect. I like to see these hacks as sort of an on-ramp to a freeway. You know, you kind of, you try to get on them and then once your shape starts to get better and everything's going to be easier to take. Okay. Okay. Well done for asking the question. (laughs) I really appreciate it though. I mean, Jesse, I love this device. You can hear it on level four. It beeps when it's there and it goes all the way up to eight. Look at it. Whether it's a protein bar, but I guess protein bars is such a common go-to snack and they have really high sugar content. They do. So, so many options. So, look at the ingredients also and if you see that when you look at the ingredients list on the back of the product, they are ordered by weight. So, if the first ingredient says sugar, that means sugar is the most important ingredient in that product and then they decrease, right, in, in weight. So, if you see in the first five ingredients of anything, whether it's a protein or a fruit and yogurt, if there's any type of sugar in the first five ingredients, then that product is irreversible. Okay? So, if it says like- That's scary. And it doesn't have to say just sugar. It can say something like date curate, honey, dextrose, fruit juice concentrate. It has other... And the reason I mention all this is because manufacturers use lots of fancy words to not make it sound like just sugar when actually it's just sugar. It's all the same molecules, right? So, sometimes you could take- And your body's not telling the difference then? No. No difference. So, that's for the protein bar and then for the snackers- Yeah. Okay, I have a hack that's called putting clothing on your carbs. Anytime you eat carbs, so carbohydrates, starches or sugars, make sure to never eat them naked. And by naked, I mean on their own. So, never snack on just a piece of bread or never snack on just a cookie. Always add some clothing, which means protein, fats or fiber, which means, for example, adding some avocado to the bread or some cheese, which means, for example, adding five almonds for your protein or a Greek yogurt, right? So, if you love snacking, remember this hack. Put clothing on your carbs. Never eat your carbs naked. That way you'll have less of a bugle, because the risk, Jay, is that our snacks kick off that creating a rollercoaster. Yeah. Because between meals, our stomach is empty. So, same concept as for breakfast. You don't want to eat too much sweet stuff, otherwise it's gonna make a big spike and you're not gonna feel very good 90 minutes later. This is actually genius. Like I, if you're listening to this right now, none of us have any excuses. You should just run. Genuinely, I, I'm listening to you just going, thank you. Like- Aw. ... thank you so much. Because I think it's so often when you're hearing about how to change your diet, you feel it just sounds so hard and so complex and it feels like, "God, where do I even start with this?" Yeah. And here, and here we are just making really basic connections that, that we can all do very, very simply. And it helps you with your energy, with your mood, with your skin. But also with serious health conditions like type two diabetes. This is the way out, right? If you have type two diabetes, if one of your parents' grandparents has it, it can be quite challenging to know how to get out of it. You know, you can feel like either I have to go on this extreme diet and never eat carbs ever again, or I'll do this medication. And what I wanna offer with these hacks is an easy way to take back some control over your glucose levels because type two diabetes is reversible. It is not a genetic hereditary disease that you can't do anything about. You can reverse it. I see people put into remission every single week using this work in concert with their doctor, of course. But this is the kind of stuff that can turn your health around. And instead of getting sicker as you age, your health can improve as you age. Don't we all want that? Absolutely. That's the dream, you know? Yeah, absolutely. In the book, you talk about, there's some research that says that eating fruit first thing in the morning without any other foods is best for digestion. Mm. But eating it as a singular food first thing in the morning impacts blood sugar. Like, what's your take on that? Well, you know, this, this idea of, oh, if you eat fruit as dessert, it's gonna rot in your stomach or it's gonna putrefy? That's kind of a urban myth that's been floating around. So, if you look at the ideal food order from that science, you should eat the sugar last, right? And fruit is also in the sugar category. And so how do you reconcile both of those things? And people have asked me a lot about this concept of, oh, fruit for dessert is gonna rot in your stomach. Turns out there's no scientific evidence to support that. Nothing can rot in your stomach, nothing can putrefy in your stomach. Sug- sugar eaten last or fruit eaten last does not do that. Okay? Now, even though most of us think that a piece of fruit is super natural, we're like, oh, a banana, oh, a peach. Like, that's nature's bounty. Turns out, Jay, the fruit that we find today in supermarkets is actually not natural.Humans are very good at breeding stuff. So humans have bred gray wolves into chihuahuas. (laughs) Right? Yeah, yeah. And loads of other- Yes. ... breeds of dogs. We've also bred our fruit and our plants to be very sweet and full of sugar. If you compare a banana from today to an ancestral banana, they look nothing alike. The ancestral banana is small, full of seeds, full of fiber, quite tart. A modern-day banana is basically a dessert. Same for apples. Apples used to be small like cherries. Now they're this big, nice, little plump package of water and sugar essentially. If you want to eat something sweet, the piece of whole fruit is still the best thing to eat because of that protective fiber. And I explained the fiber makes that mesh in your intestine, but then as soon as you denature a piece of fruit, whether you juice it and take away the fiber, you blend it, you pulverize the fiber, then it becomes just one big glucose spike just waiting to happen. And it's not because it comes from fruit that it's good for you, right? Yeah. That's a really good explanation. I appreciate that. I think there's always been people who demonize fruit as well in that way. Mm-hmm. But I think that explanation actually gets into the nuance and subtlety of- Yeah. ... how we're having our food ... And I'm never gonna say, "Don't eat fruit." Mm-hmm. It's totally fine to eat fruit. Seriously, it's much better to eat fruit than cookies, right? Mm-hmm. For your glucose levels for your body. It is still, uh, unprocessed fruit, right? It's been bred and changed. It's been bred and changed. That's the... Yeah, yeah. But it's still unprocessed, so of course have fruit. Yeah. Just don't denature that fruit- Totally. Yeah. ... because then you're taking it even further and further away from the way nature intended us to consume it. Yeah. I actually remember when I first went to India with my mom and my mom was making me the same curries that she would make me in London, but now making them when we were living in India just for a bit. We went visiting when I was younger. And it's so interesting because each vegetable was so flavorful, but so different. And I'm sure you feel this back home or when you're traveling, like, you can find these places in the world where you're eating real vegetables and they're real fruits and they don't look as perfect. No. They all look imperfect and kind of random. They're kind of funky. Yeah. Yeah, they've got personalities. Yeah. And even the flavors are not consistent. So like, a zucchini's gonna taste different to another one, but it's still so flavorful, but in such a unique way. And I remember saying to my mom, like, "What are you doing here?" Like, "What are you doing differently in India that you're not doing back in London?" Yeah. It was just what was accessible. And, and I think that's in the States for sure, where I feel that even more than London, where in London I still felt certain vegetables and everything were still accessible. But here, like, I really feel like a lot of the vegetables and fruits we eat are super processed. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Which is really tough. Uh, one of your other hacks, uh, is stop counting calories. Yeah. And I wanted to talk about that because I think that's what all of us do. (laughs) And again that, again, the recommended 2,000 for women and 2,500 for men- Yeah. ... seems to be like such a big figure that we focus our whole diet plans on and lives on. Oh. I love this question. Do you know, Jay, how people used to measure the amount of calories in food? No, I don't know. Okay. So if they wanted to measure the amount of calories in a donut, here's what they used to do. They would put the donut in a little box and they would put this box in a bigger, like an aquarium, like a big basin of water. Okay? They'd put the donut box at the bottom of the aquarium. And then they would light the donut inside the box on fire. The donut would burn and then they would measure by how many degrees the water in the aquarium increased. Oh my gosh. So... And that would give you the number of calories in the donut. But calories is just a measure of how much heat is given up when something is burned. So if you were to put an avocado in that box and burn it, it might increase the water temperature around it by the exact same number of degrees. Therefore, you could say this donut and this avocado have the same number of calories. Now this seems pretty obvious that this is kind of a silly way to measure food. It's almost like saying, oh, this book and this book have the same number of pages. They have the same number of pages, therefore they're the same book. Yeah. And this is not the case, right? My book and your book might have the same number of pages, but they're not about the same topic, they don't have the same author. They don't give you the same information or give you the same emotion, right? And so if we just talk about foods based on how many calories they contain, we're missing what's actually key. What is in that food? What are the molecules in that food? Is that food just glucose and gonna create a big glucose spike? Or is that food just healthy fats and protein that are gonna keep your glucose levels steady? To give you another example, two people could be eating the exact same number of calories. Let's say two women are eating 2,000 calories a day. One of them could be eating in a way that keeps her glucose levels steady. Feel great, energy, functioning mitochondria, clear brain, going after her dreams, girl boss, whatever. The other person could be eating 2,000 calories in a way that's creating lots of glucose spikes. Inflammation, aging, type 2 diabetes, hormonal issues, brain fog, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. How many calories you're eating does not tell you how healthy you are. It does not predict your health at all. You need to learn about what you're eating. And in my book I explain how to identify the molecules in the food. And if you follow my hacks and you stop counting calories, naturally your health is gonna improve. You might be eating the exact same number of calories as before.... but your life would be completely different. Calories are not enough information. They're interesting to measure the quantity of food, for example, one donut versus two donuts, but they're not sufficient. (laughs) And it's really easy to hide behind calories when you're, for example, a food manufacturer and you're making processed foods and you say, "There's only 50 calories in this little bag of sweets. Don't worry, it's not bad for you, it's just 50 calories." Yeah. But it's 50 calories of pure sugar- Yeah. ... and it's gonna make you feel horrible. (laughs) Yeah. So calories are not enough. We need to evolve past this. I want to teach people what is in their food. I want to make every single one of my readers a food detective. Good. I want them to have all the agency, the power, the information to make informed choices when they go to the store now. That's the goal, right? Giving people that freedom and that power. That's what I care about. Yeah, that's such a brilliant mission. Thank you. Like that's such a brilliant mission, because even... Everything you said to us today, whether it's being able to know what to look at on the back of a pack all the way to- Putting clothing on your body. Yeah. Yeah. I was just- (laughs) I was just about to say that, like putting clothing on your body. Like I love that it comes from you in your heart and mind from a place of giving people agency and giving people strength and rather than making us fearful- Yeah. ... which I think a lot of diet plans do, a lot of food advice does. It makes us feel insecure and scared that we're doing the wrong thing. Whereas when I'm talking to you, I feel a sense of like enthusiasm, confidence- Good. ... and I know what to do. Good. And that's so, that's so fulfilling. Like it's so... It, it fills you with so much enthusiasm and energy to, to feel like, yes, I am in control of how I'm gonna feel and what I'm going to do. You are and the information is there and I, I just want to apologize to all the people who've been manipulated by food marketing, diet culture. That stuff's stopp- it can stop. If you get this information, this will stop. And the thing that breaks my heart the most, Jay, and I think this is what motivates me to do this work is, when I meet somebody who has a medical condition like type 1 diabetes, and everybody wants to make the right choices, everybody wants to be healthier, but because of the manipulation and all the misleading information about food, they're eating in a way that they think and they hope is good for them, but it's actually making them sicker. And that's what I want to stop. I want to insert this information and this science in those situation and turn it all around. I love that. I love that. Uh, Jess, we've been talking about so many things today, but one thing I wanted to ask you about was the use of supplements. Mm-hmm. I take a lot of supplements every day. I've felt better because of them. It's had a big impact on my personal life. And I was always someone who was playing around. I think supplementation is something you should test and experiment and see what works for you, the combination. Yeah. What's your take on supplements? Well, I know supplements in the glucose space, right? And I, I can't comment on all the other stuff. I'm sure there's great things for other stuff you're trying to optimize, but when it comes to glucose, so people often ask me, "Instead of doing the vinegar hack, can I take vinegar gummies? When I can't have a veggie starter, can I take fiber pills? My dad has diabetes, doesn't want to change his diet, what can I give him?" And I spent the last few years researching extensively this space and what are some small changes that could actually help your glucose levels? Unfortunately, what's on the market today at worst actually contains sugar and creates a glucose spike under the guise of gonna help you with your glucose levels. And that's just so annoying to me. And there is some good stuff out there, but I've actually created something incredible that is the best thing on the market if you want to help your journey to steady glucose with a supplement. Now, I'll explain what it is, but I don't want people to think this is a magic pill. You should do the food hacks first and foremost. Okay. That is gonna have the biggest, most powerful impact on your health. But a supplement can also help. So I've identified four plants, Jay, that have existed forever, but that recent science has shown have an incredible impact on our health results. These are white mulberry leaves, lemon extract, cinnamon, and antioxidants from green vegetables. I've put them all together into a capsule. You take it before a meal and it reduces the glucose spike of your meal by up to 40%. Wow. And this is more powerful than vinegar, which goes up to 30%. I want to try that. I know. I got some back here. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. So if you want extra help, this is the thing you need. It's called Anti-Spike Formula. You can find it on my website, antispike.com, and it not only has this immediate impact on the glucose spike of a meal, it also builds up benefit over time. It reduces inflammation, it reduces fasting glucose levels, it increases GLP-1, which is a hormone we've spoken a lot about recently in the media because of the food like Ozempic. GLP-1 is a really cool hormone that just makes you feel fuller. And Ozempic tricks your brain into thinking there's more GLP-1 in your body than there actually is. But with Anti-Spike, you're actually harnessing natural pathways to increase it for real. So this is my latest creation and I hope it's gonna help a lot of people. You know, when you're at 4:00 PM birthday party, when you're traveling, when you can't do the hacks, Anti-Spike will be there for you. But again, do the food hacks first. It's just an additional hack to help. I want to try that. Yeah? For sure. I'll put it in my bag. (laughs) Yeah. I love that. What is your take on Ozempic? Mm-hmm. I mean, basically you just mentioned, uh, what's been your assessment of it? I'm sure you've seen people on it. Yeah. Listen, I think for a lot of people it's been kind of a godsend. Um, they've really struggled their whole life with their weight, and for some people that's their objective, right? So w- whether you take it or you don't take it, it's not my place to judge. But what I found, Jay, is that if you think about it, this craze has shown us that we live in a society in which our food system is so toxic that we need to take a pill to prevent us from eating the food properly. Can you see how sad that is?So, I just feel a bit worried about this, this hard time that we've gone through (...) and also when people lose weight on Ozempic, they don't just lose fat, they also lose muscle mass. And so, when you stop taking Ozempic and you actually, um, gain weight back, you often just gain fat. So overall, you're in the worst place. So, whether or not you take it, it's important to learn my hacks. So that way- (laughs) ... when you stop it, you sustain it, right? But, um, yeah, I mean, wow. Wow, what can I say? (laughs) What a crazy world we live in. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I appreciate you touching on that cultural challenge that we have. You brought a number of parts of the conversation and I really think that that's at the heart of a lot of what you're saying, is that everyone out there who's listening right now, who feels like they don't like the way they eat, they don't like what they eat- (laughs) ... they judge their body, they look in the mirror first thing in the morning and criticize themself, it all comes from programming and conditioning. Not your fault. It's not your fault. No. And it was... you were set up to feel that way. Yes. And- And there's a lot of money being made off of that program. Yeah. So, I think a lot of people, we beat ourselves up thinking about, "What's wrong with me?" Or, "There must be something really bad with me." Or, "Oh my gosh, I'm not disciplined enough and I don't know ... " No, it's not about discipline, it's not about laziness. It's temptation, choices. Toxic food around you that's cheap and you're seeing marketing messages, you know, incorrect information. So, we need to go back to teaching people how their body actually functions, the science and physiology. And you know, Jake, I hope I will become completely irrelevant. I hope this information will be so common knowledge. People will be like, "Yep, wear sunscreen, drink water, brush your teeth, have a savory breakfast." Like, I want myself to be at that level and I wanna retire and- (laughs) ... disappear- Yeah. ... because everybody needs to know this. Yeah. It should be taught in school. Yeah. It's a basic right to understand how your body functions and how to navigate this difficult food landscape that we live in. Absolutely. And, and the courage that any of you have right now, who are listening and even wanting to take one step- Mm-hmm. ... towards that agency that Jessie's been talking about, that's a huge win. Because we're operating in a society where even taking that one step is often so difficult because of all the messages we're hearing around us. So, anyone who's listening and about to take that first step, uh, go and order a copy of Glucose Revolution right now and The Life-Changing Power of Balancing Your Blood Sugar. And, of course, check out antispike.com, uh, to figure out if you need to add that, once you've done, uh, Jessie's hacks. And Jessie, we end every conversation with a final five, which is our fast five (...) and I'm excited for our... see what you answered. Yay. So, they have to be answered in one word, in one sentence max. Right. So, Jessie, here are your final five. The first question is, what is the best advice you've ever heard or received? And please say it. Symptoms are messages. Okay. I'm gonna let you expand on that. I like it. Okay. If you feel symptoms from acne to psoriasis, to infertility to brain fog, these are not something to suppress. They're a message of error, your body trying to communicate and tell you, "Hey, there's something wrong here. I need your help." Don't suppress it, don't feel bad about the symptoms. Flip the script. Talk to your body. Be like, "Okay, why is there all this eczema on my arm? What's going on?" That's information, that's insight. "Can I help you?" You see what I mean? So, symptoms are messages. How, how do you think we often process symptoms instead of as messages? We think our body is spiking at us. We're like, "Body, why are you against me?" We don't understand it's crying for help. It's not against... your body just wants to keep you alive. Your body is not trying to be annoying, I promise. Your body is trying to keep you alive. That's so good. (laughs) That's so good, I love that. Your body is not trying to be annoying. Yeah. (laughs) I love that. That's so true. And your body is so much smarter than you, so much smarter than you. Listen to it. It's got so much to teach you. That's such great insight. Next time you cover Google on that. Yay. I love that. That- Great. ... that's really hit a chord with me. Like, I think it's so interesting how we look at any inconvenience as- An inconvenience. ... there's something wrong and, and you're being annoying and I wish you would just be okay. Rather than, oh, wait a minute, you're actually trying to share something. Yeah. And I think a lot of people, at least I've heard, I don't know kids, for example, a lot of people feel this with their children, where your child's trying to communicate with you and just doesn't know how. Mm-hmm. And it's almost like our body's like that. Yeah. It's like a baby doesn't cry because it's trying to annoy you. Yeah. A baby cries because it's going through something difficult and it wants your help. Yeah. I love that. That's such a beautiful answer. All right, second question, what is the worst health advice you've ever heard or received? (laughs) Um, have a fruit smoothie first thing in the morning. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, anything that has to do with, uh, fruit juices, fruit smoothies as being a health food, anything, no. I'm just like, "No." Not good. Not good. Not good. Okay. Uh, question number three, what's the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do in the evening? First thing I do in the morning, I take my earplugs out and I drink water. (laughs) So, you do have water first thing in the morning? Yeah, absolutely. And then I try to turn my phone on a little bit later. I try to not turn it on ... for half an hour. Last thing I do at night before going to bed, I have this app in which I track my mental health. So, I put a little, a scale of one to five how my mental health was today and I write a couple sentences about my day. Nice. What is the app? It's called Daylio. There's no affiliation whatsoever. Yeah. It's awesome. D-A-Y-L-I-O. And I've been doing this for four years now and it makes a little dot for... I'll show you it in a sec. It makes a little dot for every day. And so, I have four years of dots of how my mental health was and I'll revisit and I see these patterns, I see that I've gotten happier over time and fulfilled and less episodes of difficult mental health issues. So, it's really, really useful. That's beautiful, man. That's, that's a great recommendation for everyone listening. Uh, fourth question, what's something that you used to believe to be true about health, but now you realize it's actually not true? Uh, that everybody should wear a glucose monitor. Mm-hmm. So, when I first started in this space, because wearing a glucose monitor had changed my life, I was telling everybody to wear one. And now I realize that-You can get all the benefits by seeing what I've discovered and the science that I've found. And sometimes over-tracking yourself can lead to issues and stress. I c- I can relate to that. There was a point where I was measuring everything. Yeah. And it was useful, and then it went too far. Yeah. And then I didn't want to measure anything, and then it- it- it's a- it's a really interesting balance because data can be so powerful and at the same can be so disempowered. Because sometimes we look at the data to decide how we feel about something. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, you know- Yeah. You're letting it affect you. You wake up and you're like, "I don't know if I'm tired or not. Look at my sleep data. Oh, I'm exhausted." Purely because they didn't sleep well, but you're actually not connected to how you feel. (laughs) Yeah, yeah. And it takes you outside of your body. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. It's what you were saying earlier. We need to actually get better at living in our bodies and listening within our bodies and hearing and feeling what they're saying to us and how they're communicating, rather than expecting that even an external person or system is going to somehow predict how we feel. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's a really, really powerful thing there. I love that. Our fifth and final question, which we ask to every guest who's ever been on the show: if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be? Okay. I'm gonna restrict myself to the world of food, okay? Yes. Because there's lots of other laws that we could do that would be very important in the world. It should be a real law, like- Yeah. Ban all processed breakfast foods. Because that would help kids. It would help parents. It would change people's mood, make them happier, more fulfilled. Yeah. I think that's a good one. That's huge. Or like the law could be treat breakfast like any other meal, because if you ban something, then other stuff pops up. So it's more like- (laughs) ... treat breakfast as a second lunch. Yeah. And eat lunch food at breakfast. Yeah, yeah. That's great. I love that. Everyone, Jessie Inchaupin. The book is called Glucose Revolution: The Life-Changing Power of Balancing Your Sugar. If you don't follow @glucosegoddess on Instagram, make sure you go do that right away. Please grab a copy of this book. We went through the hacks, but we were just skimming the surface. There is amazing insight, amazing hacks, amazing steps and habit-building processes inside the book that are gonna be huge for you. So I can't recommend this book enough. I would actually say that if there's one book you read in 2024, I want it to be this book. So please, please, please go pick this book up. I think it will change your life. Uh, I don't think I've ever emphatically mentioned a book that way before on the show, but I mean it. And, uh, I- I can't thank you enough, Jessie, for the work that you're doing in the world and how much it's impacted my personal life and how I feel and how I commit to impact millions and billions worldwide. So thank you so much. Thank you, Joe. I'm very grateful to be here. I hope you come back soon. With pleasure. If you loved this episode, you will enjoy my interview with Dr. Daniel Amen on how to change your life by changing your brain. If you want a healthy mind, it actually starts with a healthy brain. You know, I've had the blessing or the curse to scan over 1,000 convicted felons and over 100 murderers and their brain is barely damaged. I am in love with these $30 pants by Any Day Loose. They're as comfortable as leggings, but they look like trousers. Feel a little bit sexier, a little younger. I love the stretch. What causes your body pain? Your body, if it could talk to you was like, "You just had a lot of extra stuff you've been giving me and I didn't know where to put it, so I started in your belly and I'm putting it there to save your life." Women's health expert, podcast host, Dr. Mindy Pelz. What is the worst mistake someone can make while fasting that will make them gain weight? Doing the same fast, the same way every single day. This is the part that I want to scream from the rooftop. We are thrilled to announce that we've reached three million subscribers. We're incredibly grateful to each and every one of you. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to hit that subscribe button, so you never miss out on any of our new releases. We're dedicated to bringing you the content you love. Our team carefully analyzes what resonates most with you to bring on board the best experts and storytellers to help you improve your life. Some of your favorite topics, sleep science, weight loss, physical fitness, navigating breakups, habit building and understanding toxic relationships. Upcoming episodes include one of the biggest names in health and science, world-renowned relationship therapist and your favorite manifestation expert is back to drop new findings. Hit subscribe to not miss any of these episodes. If you think of someone who would love this episode, send it to them to make their day. The number one health and wellness podcast. Day check, day check. The one, the only. Day check. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier and more healed. Today's guest is going to help us do just that from the inside out. Dr. Mindy Pelz is a women's health expert, podcast host and best-selling author of Fast Like a Girl: The Menopause Reset, and her new book, Eat Like a Girl. With a mission to empower women by helping them understand their bodies, Dr. Pelz has become a leading voice in the fields of hormones, fasting and healthy living. Dr. Mindy's work provides extreme valuable guidance for women navigating the complexities of hormones, metabolic health and nutrition. Please welcome to On Purpose, Dr. Mindy Pelz. Mindy, it's great to see you- Yeah, thank you. ... and, uh, thank you for being here. Oh, I'm excited. I'm super happy to be here and have this conversation with you. I just want to point out how amazing you are because you're actually here on your birthday, which shows how much you value and deeply believe in the work that we're doing to spend your birthday with us. Yeah. So I feel even more lucky............................You know, I'm sure that your work, you know, it is... (machine whirring) it just oozes out of me. So, it's not like I, I had to sacrifice being here on my birthday. It was more of a joy to be here, so thank you for having me on my birthday. I love it. Well, let's get right into it. I wanted to start off with a big question. When, when we knew you were coming on the show, we asked our audience the things that they would love to learn from you, the things they'd like to know about you. And one of the biggest ones that came up is, what is the worst mistake someone can make while fasting that will make them fat? Ooh. (laughs) You're gonna ask what's the biggest question? Yeah. Okay, this is really great because there's not a one-sentence answer. So, the biggest mistake, for starters, is doing the same fast, the same way every single day over and over and over again. Wow. We were meant to vary, men and women were meant to vary our fasts. And here's the way you look at it, is that the human body will adapt to what we call a hormetic stress, a little tiny stressor that puts it into a forced adaptation. So, you go without food. All of a sudden you're like, your body's like, "Wait a second. No food coming in. We're gonna need to go find that food that we stored years ago," and so it will go to the fat storage and burn that fat. Mm-hmm. If you do that same style of fasting, maybe it's one meal a day over and over and over again, the body gets really smart. And it's like, "Wait. No food coming in. I only get a little bit of food every single day. I'm gonna slow my metabolism down." So, the biggest mistake that people make is that they've got to vary their fasts, vary the length. They don't fast every day. It's what we call feast-famine cycling, and it's how the human body was designed to be. I was not expecting that answer. That's so good. (laughs) Because I... (laughs) I feel like everything we're ever told is like, "Here's the hours. Here's what it is. Do it five days in a row. Maybe you can take a couple of days off a week or month," whatever people are doing. How do you know, then, how to structure it to give yourself some sort of system to follow so that you're not just, I guess, completely out of sync as well? Yeah. So, first I want to say is it, it makes logical sense if you go back and you think about the hunter-gatherers. Like, they came out of the cave and sometimes they had a meal leftover from a kill they made the night before. Sometimes they had a lot of food and then sometimes they had zero. (machine whirring) Home sender online.... food. So, our body is used to that feast-famine cycling because that's how we were primally designed. So, I wanna point that out. Second thing, the way that I see this is that every day, you have a fasting window and you have an eating window. Mm-hmm. And your eating window, you get to vary. Mm-hmm. And it should vary for most people based off your lifestyle. So, let's use the example of the soccer mom, um, because that was sort of a big part of your practice was all these healthy moms. Mm-hmm. And what we found is that they want... The most important meal for them was dinner when the family was together. So, they needed to skip breakfast and start their eating window somewhere around, let's say, 6:00, 7:00. And then they would have their eating window from, let's say, 8:00 to 9:00. So, if they started their eating window at 12:00, 1:00, they could finish that eating window at 7:00, 8:00. So, Monday through Friday, they would make their eating window in the afternoon from 4:00 to 8:00. But then on the weekends, like a lot of families, you want to have brunch on Sundays or maybe they'll go to the farmer's market or, or maybe they'll go out for breakfast on Sunday morning. So, then they would move their eating window up into the real evening. So, I think you should base it off your lifestyle and then, of course, base it off, women should base it off their menstrual cycle as well. That's really important. Yeah. So, I'm someone who loves to eat, eat, eat. Yeah. So, I end up eating, I'm a three meals a day kind of person. I have to eat three meals day. Yeah. My body reacts to whether it's breakfast, whether it's lunch or dinner, whatever it is, if I jump. Yeah. If I try and miss breakfast or have a late breakfast, I'm feeding it. Yeah. Um, if I have skipped a meal in the middle of the day, I'm feeling that. Like, my body wants it. Yeah. So, I generally end up eating three meals a day pretty much at the same time every day. Yeah. Is that bad? Mm-hmm. Well, I mean, it depends. I always say it depends on your intention. So, what's your intention for your health? Mine right now is to gain strength in the muscles I've been training and trying to eat enough protein and stuff to color the muscles in. And then you are doing, when you're working out, in the morning? Yes, in the morning. Yeah. So, for you, because you're trying to up muscles, you're gonna want to make sure that you eat before your workout and you're gonna wanna make sure you eat after your workout. I'm not doing the before. Yeah. So then, what will end up h- so you go in fueled, you're breaking that muscle down while you're working out, and then you're refueling after. That would be like the perfect way to do that. Yep. But then where does the fasting window fit in? So, the fasting window would probably be more towards the end of the day. And one of the things that I, just try to make this simple for everybody, is the best thing you can do is always eat when you're light. The minute we start eating in the dark, like, at the end of the day, we've got melatonin becoming into our body. Mm-hmm. And melatonin causes us to be more insulin-resistant. So, if you were working out at 9:00 in the morning, I'd want you to have a meal, maybe a small little protein shake at 8:00. You do your workout and you follow it up with a recovery meal. So about seven-hour? Yeah, I would do... Yeah, I would... Just enough to kind of fuel you. Yeah. You wouldn't need a huge amount. Okay. And then-... five, six o'clock at night, depending on the time of year, we shut it down. And then now, if you're done eating at 6:00, you would go from six to six all the way till 8:00. That's a 14-hour fast every day and that's pretty good. Yeah. So that's pretty much what I do fasts for. If I stop eating at, like, 6:30, you would definitely be able to see- Yeah. ... some of those late night snacks. Yeah, yeah. If, if I end up being out too late, if I have to do this 30 days, I'm not eating as much. Yeah, yeah. But I guess, yeah, don't eat none of those, none of those late night snacks that- That's the challenge. ... if I end up being out too late, if I have to do this 30 days. Yeah, that's the challenge. Eating the light. Yeah. So eating the light, and then what a lot of people do because of that night snacking, what a lot of people decide is, "You know what? I'd rather delay my breakfast so that I can eat a little bit later 'cause I maybe just felt a little popcorn and watched a movie at night." And so they'll, they'll make their first meal mid. But this is the whole point of what I'm trying to teach is all of this is customizable. So you, but you should customize it to your intention and your goals and your lifestyle. And, and if you can do it that way, it's a health habit that becomes effortless over time. As opposed to what we typically do, which is, "I'm gonna get healthy, I'm gonna get fit." (bag crinkling) (laughs) And then we put our health into question when we don't lose the weight we want, right? And then after a while we just give up because we're not losing the weight. Right. So you've worked with people with menopause. Have you noticed any changes in how they think about food? Yeah. You know, I love that. The second thing that everyone asks about when you first start this journey is, "How many calories should I eat every day?" Everyone wants to know about calorie counts and calorie deficit. Right. Everyone has different needs, right? Everybody wants to know about calorie counts and calorie deficit. Everybody thinks they have to be on a calorie deficit when they're not. Right. And that is the first question to ask yourself and then what's the first question to ask your body? Yeah. Here's what the body does. It will end up producing more insulin so it can take those sugars into glycogen so that you don't starve. Mm-hmm. And when you have a lot of stored sugar as glycogen, your body thinks, "I've got enough stored sugar in my body to survive." Mm-hmm. And so it starts making more insulin. And when you make more insulin, that means your body thinks, "I've got to get that sugar off my body quickly because if I don't, I'm gonna die." Mm-hmm. And so now it starts making more insulin. Mm-hmm. And the body makes more insulin, and we see this in kids all the time, huh, honey? They're like, "Well, why can't I play with my friends?" Yeah. "Why can't I run around and play like the other kids do?" Yeah. And they go, "Well, maybe you should ask your parents for permission to play with them." Mm-hmm. Because they have a sugar problem. Yeah. And they say, "Well, what's wrong with me?" Mm-hmm. And they say, "I'm just fat." So the body thinks, "I've got to get that sugar away from these kids." Mm-hmm. "And I've got to get it away from these kids now." Mm-hmm. "And otherwise they're gonna starve." Mm-hmm. "And otherwise they're gonna die." Mm-hmm. And so it starts making more insulin. Yeah. And the body makes more insulin, and we see this in kids all the time, huh, honey? They're like, "Well, why can't I play with my friends?" Yeah. "Why can't I run around and play like the other kids do?" Mm-hmm. And they go, "Well, maybe you should ask your parents for permission to play with them." Yeah. Because they have a sugar problem. Yeah. And they say, "Well, what's wrong with me?" Mm-hmm. "And I've got to get that sugar away from these kids." Yeah. "So it stores it first around your belly." No way. So it, this is the thing that I'm, like, trying to free women from, is then you look in the mirror and you're like, "Wait a second, I'm, I hate that belly fat." And then you shame yourself and you guilt your way into the next diet. When your body, if it could talk to you was like, "Okay, listen. You just had a lot of extra stuff you've been giving me and I didn't know where to put it, so I started in your belly, then I put it in your booty, then I put it around your face and the back of your arms." And for women sometimes it goes in the chest. "And I'm putting it there to save your life." So I think the first step to losing menopausal belly fat is acno- is getting in alignment with the body and thank- Fantastic. ... and thank the body for what it's doing because it's trying to save you. That's fantastic. So now with that understanding, we go, okay, well belly in general means we know cortisol. Mm-hmm. So we are cortisol saturated when we're born. So what do we got to do? Well, there are, there are things to help your cortisol other than just being a mom. (laughs) There are other things you can do other than sitting somewhere and just meditating. I mean, the easy things. When stress or when it hits you, the worst thing you can do is sit. Get up and move. Cortisol was meant to make you move. Mm-hmm. That's, it's that hormone that gets you up to get up and go because you're running from a tiger or something like that. Yeah. So if you're sitting at your desk, box boxing, it's like, "Hey, I'm going to be stressed about yesterday." And you're like, there's no way out, you feel so upset, you're losing it in your basement, right? Or with your parents. So constantly walking will help bring that cortisol down. Getting out in nature will help bring cortisol down. The hanging out with positive people so that you're not in, in an environment where negative people are throwing cortisol bombs at you all day long. Mm-hmm. Where your thinking starts to become more and more negative. Mm-hmm. That you're starting to, like, think everything's a threat and you're not safe and cortisol is high. That all degrades the belly fat. Mm-hmm. And that's why I'm, like, going into the detail on this. Mm-hmm. Because people want the quick fix. But I would, with the belly fat- Mm-hmm. ... the first thing I want people to ask themselves is, "What is the stress level of my life?" Mm-hmm. "And how can I bring that stress level down and how can I start to work with cortisol?" Walking being the biggest one, hanging out in nature- Mm-hmm. ... and then getting your body into the right environment. Then you can look at toxics. So we started this conversation before we recorded about toxicity. We live in the most toxic time.(waves crash) Women are putting over 200 toxic, carcinogenic chemicals on their skin every single day. Your brilliant body is like, "I don't know what to do with all this, so I'm gonna put it around your belly and your chest." And again, then we look in the mirror and we're mad at ourselves because we weren't disciplined enough. So go and look at your toxic load, what toxic chemicals are constantly coming into your body and start looking into different detoxes because we gotta bring your toxic load down. I really believe (door closes) if you wanna be healthy, you don't need motivation, you need momentum. "I can't overcome my sugar addiction." No, you should rephrase that and you should say, "I've trained my body to crave sugar." And you're double downing on dieting and you're double downing on, uh, working out and you don't even realize that it's actually this chemical load that has completely reprogrammed your body. What are the most common places that people are putting toxins into their bodies? Well, skin is, is a big one. Um, food is horrible. I put a whole thing in, in Eat Like a Girl, and I was so depressed (laughs) after I wrote it, all about obesogens. So, obesogens are chemicals that are in our food. So, uh, BPA plastics are what our food are wrapped around. Th- that's an obesogen. Um, pesticides are an obesogen. I, the wh- there's a long list in the book. Like, artificial colorings and flavorings, BHT, BHA, all of these synthetic ingredients, what they do, and this is the part that I, like, wanna scream from the rooftops is what they do is they literally, those chemicals go into stem cells and they reprogram those stem cells to actually make fat cells. And one of the places we're seeing this is in the UK right now, because kids have lower, ha- have lots of stem cells, and as we get older, we have less. And so, what we're seeing is that the stem cells that were supposed to make bone are now making fat. And so kids are becoming, their height is smaller and shorter than ever before, and they're bigger and bigger than ever before. So these chemicals are totally changing our fat distribution, and the belly fat is one of them. So, what you put on your body and what you're putting in your mouth, start there. Yeah. That's, it's so terrifying. It's terrifying. It's terrifying, because it feels like everything you turn over these days, every pack is labeled- Yeah. ... with a million different things. Yeah. And if you're not conscious and aware and- Yeah. ... checking pretty much everything that they've got, there's no way you'll have any of those problems. That's right. And, and the best thing you can do is eat food without a label. Like, go to your farmer's market, get, you know, healthy fruits and vegetables. If you eat meat, you know, know who your butcher is, and like know where that meat came from. Make sure it wasn't packed with chemicals. Like, I think we used to think it was like only people who ate organic were hippies. And I would say, at this particular moment in, in history, you should know what ingredients are, or you should know those chemicals that are being used in your food because they are reprogramming your body more than anything. They're programming your stem cells to make these, these dopamine fat cells. And you're double downing on dieting and you're double downing on, uh, working out, and you don't even realize that it's actually this chemical load that has completely reprogrammed your body. And it's very conscious now. Oh, yeah. Oh, well, so chemicals are, are, are there for two reasons, really. One is shelf life. So, you know, much easier for these food and drink companies to make sure that their food that sits on a shelf is gonna last for a long time. The second one is that they are hijacking your taste buds so that you're addicted to them. Let me give you an example. Years ago, in the LA Times, this was like 15 years ago, this three spread, page spread comes out in the LA Times. Like, huge, about what lay, it was Lay's specifically, potato chips. And what they were doing, what the, the company was looking at was what kind of chemicals can we spray on the potato chip so that it hits all the dopamine receptor sites in the brain, but we gotta keep that, that, that chip light enough that when it hits the b- the stomach, it doesn't stimulate s- uh, trigger a reaction in the brain to go, "I'm hungry." So it needs to be light, it has to be salty, it has to hit the, have a little bit of sweetness in it so it can hit those dopamine sites, but we can't let that person just sit around all day. So, think about that. How many people open a bag of potato chips and eat the entire bag? Does that mean we have to eat one with the little bags on, and then the next thing you know you're 125 pounds and you're cute? I mean, that is what all this industrial processing and food adds is it hijacks our taste buds. So now, we don't even have to look at that label. It's so hard when you know that your taste buds are being reprogrammed and you can sort of tell your body, "This is such a new day in hell, that the habit that we had of grabbing that bag of chips or that cup of Coke or whatever else it may be-" Yeah. "... it feels like that new processed state." And it's like- Yeah. ... "Oh, but that's who I am 'cause I, I love that type of food." Or- Yeah. "... that's what I'm used to." And we're trying to go against this deep, long-term conditioning that goes on. Yes. Yeah. So, breaking that habit is a lot harder than it seems. Yeah. And, and again, I'm always for you to think like a slave owner in this situation, because what I think women do is that when they don't know this information, is that they start to think they can't lose weight-... because they wanted the, the lower sugar version, actually had a chemical in it that reprogrammed stem cells to make fat cells and then hijacked their taste buds so that they're addicted to those foods over and over again. But, but the woman doesn't know that. She's like, "I, I don't lose weight. It must be my fault." She goes into the doctor's office, the doctor's like, "Your BMI is really high." And so now all of a sudden he's, you know, the doctor's like, "You gotta lose weight." She doesn't know what to do, so she's like doubling down on, on eating less. She's doubling down on exercise, she's doubling down on shaming herself. And it... She didn't realize that it was actually the food industry that changed her whole body, and she needs to unhook from that food system in order to get the result she wants. A lot of people when they're in that position, something they do is people count calories. Yeah. Do they matter? So this question comes up all the time. So I'm so happy that you asked it, um, because based off of research, yes, calories matter. But based off of human behavior, calories don't matter. So this is why in Eat Like a Girl, I have a statement that blood sugar matters, calories don't. And the reason that I say that is that every single woman I sat with in my clinic and ev- all the feedback we're getting on our socials from women who are fasting is that they don't know how many calories they eat in a day, and they don't know how many calories is their output in a day. So nobody can actually succeed at calories in, calories out. But I can take a, a CGM and I can put it on the back of a woman's arm and I can say, "Just eat." And then she can see real time what that blood sugar spike is, how many does she have over and over and over again. And from that visual, she can start to make better choices about her health that affects her, her blood sugar better, and so that she can start to keep her blood sugar low. I'll give you an example. I had a patient a couple years ago that was plant-based and, um, not wanting to change plant-based, I was in honor of her choice. But when we put a CGM on her, she had about 10 spikes of these really high spikes of glucose every single day. And I asked her, I was like, "How do you, like what... Do your moods follow these spikes?" And she's like, "Yeah, I'm like up, I'm down. I'm hungry and then I'm not hungry. Like I feel like I'm on a rollercoaster all day long." So what I did is we worked with, "Okay, how about if we add a little bit of fat? How about if we add a little bit of fiber? What if we take some of these things like oat milk and let's sort of switch oat milk? Or we, or maybe if you love your oat milk, let's make sure it's really clean oat milk and let's add a little MCT oil in your coffee." And we started to change how a meal was put together, and she went down to about four spikes a day. She didn't, and she didn't change really anything she ate, she changed the way that she put a meal together and then the blood sugar changed and then her moods changed, and then her weight changed because we, because I taught her blood sugar. That doesn't happen with calories. How many spikes a day is okay? I don't know if there's an average spike amount, but let's, let's say that when you get a glucose spike, the most important thing is that it comes down to its pre-glucose amount, pre-meal amount within 90 minutes. So textbook is two hours, but I like to say if we can do like an hour and a half where you have a blood sugar spike and with an hour and a half your blood sugar's right back where it was before you ate that meal, that's, you're pretty insulin sensitive. If it's taking more than two hours for your body to be able to integrate that glucose, now we may have a little bit metabolically resistant, insulin resistant body. So it's your recovery from the meal that matters more than anything else. Interesting. Yeah. Oh, right. Okay. So 90 minutes is what we should be aiming for? I, that's my personal standard. Right. Clin- uh, like what most doctors will say it's two hours, but I, I like it to be a little quicker than that. Got it. So that's what we should be measuring and that's what we should be looking for. Yeah. Yeah. And then the other thing is one of the greatest studies done on fasting was done by a guy named Eric Verdin who's the founder of 20 Minute Fasting. And what he found is that when you ate all your food in an eight hour window, but you had only 16 hours for rest and recovery, that you basically became metabolically immu- immune from the harsh metabolic consequences of the process of that fasting. So what that meant was I could take all the bad food and I could put it in an eight hour eating window and I didn't give my, my system that big of a rest, then the metabolic system didn't need it so much and the results were better. So if you take those pill, they're, they're outstanding. People say, "Well, you don't want them." Well, they're fantastic. They are. They're not inflammatory, they're not controlled sugar. People love them. So when I look at the spikes, I want to see the recovery of the spike and then I want to see what part of the day goes really well and how that portion of the spike is handled. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah. One of the things about, I've been messing with people about, you know, Eat Like a Girl, where you talk about eating for your microbes, not replacing them with sweets. And I find this to be a constant kind of challenge that people in my life have when we're talking about healthy eating or healthy habits, when it comes to food or being in the gym, eating for our taste buds over eating for our emotions. Talk to me, when you talk about eating for your microbes, talk to me about how our, our healthiness of our taste buds will change over time. Yeah. Is that something people are not aware of, the roots of where this comes from? Yeah. And this is... The reason I put that as real foundational because it's really-... so many women, and this is why it's like, "I'm just gonna hydrate instead of sugar or alcohol." They'll say, "It's just craving. I can't, I can't uncrave it. I just, it's like a tub of ice cream just calms me." Well, if you actually look, there are gonna be microbes and there are gonna be fungus that lives in your gut that is doing the calming. So those are the ones that are sending the signals to the brain, "Feed me." So we have trillions of bacteria in our gut and they all wanna stay alive. So they send signals to the brain and they tell the brain, "Feed me this, don't feed me that," so that they can stay alive. And then on top of that, we add this dopamine response which makes us feel good. So we're, we're actually not really in control of our food choices when we eat food after dinner. So let's say your friend, your friends who are like, "I, I have no willpower. I don't know how to overcome my sugar addiction." Well, the first thing is make sure you're eating whole foods. Get back to nature, so nature's... Nature didn't create food that made you addicted. So get off those processed foods. And then once you get eating your micros right, then you want to make sure that you are high balance protein and low glycemic index carbs. So I would say that the first three weeks is really critical because now we're gonna start to build up the body's resistance to the sugar and the processed foods. So you're gonna see a lot of weight gain in that first three weeks, but then you're gonna see a lot of weight loss after that. So- Yeah. ... once you get past that, and this is really important because people just worry about the foods they're eating and not the fact that they're getting enough protein or they're not getting enough protein or they're not getting enough sleep. And the study that I love, one of the best studies ever done was done with obesity every year in the UK where what, what a researcher did is she took 300 people that were overweight and they were given an insulin pump for six months. And then at the end of the six-months, they said, "You can come back now and tell me if you've lost any weight." The next day they came in and they looked in the mirror and they were like, "Oh my God, I've lost so much weight." She found that at the end of the year, everybody's metabolic markers were normal. Everybody lost weight. There was no sugar cravings. People felt so good about themselves. Yeah. Mm-hmm. They were like, "I love this. I love this so much." Her favorite phrase was, "I cannot stop eating." She was like- (laughs) ... "I'm so hungry all day. I'm struggling with this. Like why do you think these aren't refraining?" So when we got to the end of the six-months, she was like- (laughs) ... "I can't stop eating. I can't stop eating." And she's like, "This is the best six weeks." And she's like, "Now I'm gonna lose it forever." And she's like, "I'm never gonna stop eating again." So that was one of my favorite studies where I saw people come in and they were so happy and they lost so much weight. And it was like the most amazing thing to see because they'd been struggling with this for so long. And they were like, "I love myself so much." And I think it was the first time where people actually saw, "Oh my God, this is what happens when you stop eating sugar." They started to starve their bodies. They started to go after all of the places in your body still had access. And they started to see results. And I believe that one of the keys is you need motivation, you need momentum. And once you have momentum, then motivation comes. So one of the things that we do when we're looking at these microbes in particular in these buds, let's just start tacking on some, you know, fasting windows every day where you just give the microbes a break and they will start to die off. And, and the longer you fast, the more they die off. And your food choices will change, which is what happened in that study. I experienced that last year where- Yeah. ... I, I found when my wife was putting me off sugars because there was such contrast in the beginning. You know? I was like, "Threatened." Yeah. (laughs) And, and it's... Like, in the end of it, I didn't know how strong it was for me because I grew up eating four chocolate bars a day. Yeah. And now I'll have one dessert a week. Amazing. And it's taken me... Or like one refined sugar product a week. Yeah. And, and then I'll have natural sugars like fruits and veggies for, for the rest of the week. Yeah. And I think it's, it's been such a journey for me, but you're so right that it had to be starved, had to have substitutes, and then eventually I, eventually I started-